


i can go anywhere i want (just not home)

by robyndoesntlikeyou



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Adopted Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Caring Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Crying, Family Bonding, Family Dynamics, Found Family, Gen, Happy Ending, Like, Mild Hurt/Comfort, No Romance, Out-Of-Character Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Panic Attacks, Parental Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Phil Watson Adopts Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Protective Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Sad Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Technoblade & Phil Watson Friendship (Video Blogging RPF), Very Very Mild, Winged Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), i love these boys so much, mention of panic attacks but nothing in-depth or descriptive :), very vague descriptions of pain and burning sensations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:54:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29546829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robyndoesntlikeyou/pseuds/robyndoesntlikeyou
Summary: Gentle footsteps padded closer to him, and the moonlight beaming through the window shutters illuminated Phil's heavyset frame shuffling through the house.Ranboo stood in the doorway, a frayed shawl swaddled tightly around his shoulders, face sticky with half-dried tears, glittering in the lantern-light.
Relationships: Ranboo & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo & Technoblade & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo & Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Technoblade & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 445





	i can go anywhere i want (just not home)

**Author's Note:**

> title is from 'my tears ricochet' by taylor swift! no the song doesn't really have anything to do with the story but i liked the lyric so i used it LMAOO
> 
> i just want my arctic boys to be happy ;-; ranboo's angsty lore is breaking me and if techno and phil don't adopt him soon i'm gonna do it myself
> 
> small warning for panic attacks (nothing severe, just a mention) and a vague description of burning sensations, but thats all :) enjoy, folks

"U-uhm... hello?"

"'Ello?" Came a quiet grumble from within the darkened home. Philza.

"I didn't- I didn't mean to wake you..." the boy fumbled out a whispered apology, the lantern in his hand sheathed by a threadbare rag, the light shimmering through the thin cloth.

Gentle footsteps padded closer to him, and the moonlight beaming through the window shutters illuminated Phil's heavyset frame shuffling through the house. Ranboo stood in the doorway, a frayed shawl swaddled tightly around his shoulders, face sticky with half-dried tears, glittering in the lantern-light. 

"W'a's wrong?" The winged man mumbled, voice still thick with sleep, but offering enough clarity to be understood.

Ranboo hesitated, his mouth opening briefly and then snapping shut with a muted click, and he winced as a fresh surge of tears and exhaustion overwhelmed him.

"'M sorry, I- I had a panic attack and- and you guys told me if there- if anything was ever wrong to come here, and I just-" a quiet, staticky cough interrupted his words, and he let out a faint whimper of pain as tears seared his skin.

"'Ey, 'ey," Phil stepped closer to him, reaching up to set a guiding hand on his shoulder. "'S'alright, mate. Come in, c'mon. I'll get the fire goin'."

The tearful boy felt strong arms wrap around his back, hefty and calloused but holding the tenderness of a father. Phil led him to a grainy, sturdy rocking chair stationed by the hearth, a coarse knitted blanket draped over the arm. The winged man kneeled on the hardwood, breathing life into a fading warmth, blowing over smoldering embers as if fire might return to them under the influence of steady lungs and deft hands.

He felt eyes burn the back of his head, a piercing stare he had come to associate with protection and safety. Technoblade.

"Are you alright?" His voice was mellow, vowels blurry with tiredness. At night, his guard seemed to slip, the warmth and assuredness of the walls around him easing his paranoid mind, sinking into the knots in his shoulders that grew from holding the burden of his own complexity.

The enderchild remained silent, and Techno lowered his head acceptingly. "Do you want tea?"

Ranboo paused for a moment, and then nodded, eyes wide with troubled and uncertainty. It was peculiar, to see someone so frequently in good humor, someone so open, curled in on himself, whispering to calm his own thoughts, like a paper sailboat in a maelstrom.

Techno nodded, trailing his hand across Ranboo's shoulders with trained triviality as he passed by behind him. It wasn't much - the elder wasn't one for physical affections, and his touches were sparse and given only to those he trusted most - but the mere knowledge of the meaning behind the gentle touch almost brought tears to Ranboo's eyes again.

The two friends worked in tandem, swift and noiseless. They need not exchange words, only glances, gentle signs in the forms of a hand on a back or an elbow bumping a shoulder. They were steadfast, the energy between them flowing seamlessly, humming in the room until it was audible, until Ranboo's head was fuzzy with warmth and sleep. A woolen blanket, royal blue, found its way around him, guided by spry fingers, delicate and weary in their care but unchanging and forgiving. A fire crackled softly. A ghostly, sweet voice filled his ears, echoing, etching itself into his ears, patient as the kindle that their fire kissed. Eyes grew blurry watching flames flicker and devour wood, the exact scent of ash and freshly-cut pine twisting around him. Buried beneath, a faint touch of lilacs and lavender, and further, a coarse soap; one that cut through sweat and blood, that washed pink water down, that slowly found its way onto Ranboo's hands and face, that curled into his hair and clung to his clothes. 

A warm cloak settles over him, mink and fox fur tickling his nose affectionately. The red wool that encases the softness within is heavy and coarse, and nearly matches the enderchild's eye. The draft is long driven from him, the northern wind finally fluttering out. 

Soothing hands find their way into his hair, broad palms, careful, holding the fate of lives and worlds in their grasp, now lapping comfortably at white and black strands. 

A second set, long and warm, beating as if with a heart of their own, blessed and cursed with blood of innocence and guilt. They linger on the scars which litter his skin, cycles of burned skin, mistakes made, lessons never learned. It had taken Ranboo a long time to determine he was not like the other kids who paddled in the stream, splashing their friends. Too many days spent sitting on ill-tempered shorelines, biting back blood and tears. The sensation of the sand beneath his fingers filled him with humiliation. If only...

Something small, smooth and chilled, is pressed into his hand, reminding him of where he is.

Green glittered gold and ocher in firelight, but the words inscribed onto it were unmistakable.

An emerald, not unlike the one which fastened Phil's cloak around him, or the ones which hung from Techno's ears.

Carved into the side, elegant and scrawling, was one word.

_ Family. _

Phil smiled at him, eyes slow-blinking and kind, cheeks puffy with sleep, but gaze shimmering with certainty.

Techno's hand closed around his own, solidifying his grip on the emerald. Great digits, varnished with the blood of the people he once called friends.

But no longer. No longer did he call them friends; no longer could he. For it was not ailment nor crisis that plagued them... their community was tainted with a different disease. Always in that city, he found himself hoping for a thicker blanket, or clothes without flimsy threads that unraveled as his own mind had, trapped inside obsidian walls, trapped inside a prison of his own creation. Jukeboxes still remind him of that place.

The voice resurfaces occasionally. He's learned from Techno how to stomach them, how to push them down and away. 

They instruct him on how to write neater, turning his scrawling letters into something genuinely legible. They show him how to fish, and how to fight. Phil teaches him to sew, and when his hair grows long enough, Techno teaches him how to care for it - how to brush how to braid. Even allowed him to plait his own dawn-washed hair, when his training has proved effective. 

They smith him a new crown. His emerald lies in the center, blazing a brilliant green, and a small inscription lurks on the inside. When the night turns cold, when the veterans stay out late, when there is nobody to unbraid his hair by the hearth and make him tea at the end of the day, or to tell him stories of battles long ago, or to describe how it feels to have the wind in your wings, and the color of the sky above the clouds after sunset - his fingers find the etching, and he recalls how hard he fought to reach this point. 

_ You are not alone. _


End file.
